Building a Case of Negligence Against a Health Care Facility

When a South Carolina nursing home or patient care facility places profit over adequate care whether due to inadequate supervision, understaffing or otherwise, and your loved one isinjured or  killed as a result, the nursing home should be held responsible for your losses.

The Strom Law Firm, LLC has been fighting nursing home abuse for over 15 years.

Proving a Nursing Home is Responsible for the Death of a Loved One

In a case where a resident dies because of the nursing home’s negligence, it is not necessary to prove that the resident would have survived if not for the negligence. If the facility accelerated the resident’s death at all, it may be liable for the death, and if the negligence caused the resident additional pain and suffering, the nursing home can be liable to the resident’s estate for mental suffering.

Expert Testimony
A plaintiff suing a nursing home may need to offer expert medical testimony about what is or is not a proper practice, treatment or procedure in a given situation, unless the lack of care or skill by the nursing home is so apparent that the average person would comprehend it based on his or her common knowledge and experience. For instance, if a nursing home administrator is alleged to have failed to exercise care with respect to maintaining the nursing home facility, that issue will likely not require expert testimony, whereas a nurse’s treatment of a patient’s condition might.

Expert testimony can help establish the standard of professional care against which the conduct of a defendant nursing home should be measured. This testimony will also help establish that the resident’s injuries were the result of the nursing home’s failure to exercise the appropriate care.

Breach of Contract

Usually, a nursing home will enter into a contract with a resident, in which it sets out what services it will provide, and the cost of those services.

If the perceived abuse or neglect of the nursing home or its employees is contrary to promises made in the contract regarding the care of residents, the nursing home can be sued under a breach of contract theory.

Many contracts require only that the home provide such services as are “reasonably necessary” for the resident’s well-being, but even under this standard, a nursing home can be found negligent if it failed to meet the basic needs of a resident.

Task the Health Care Facility with the Burden of Proof
If an injured resident does not know exactly what caused his or her injury, but it is the type of injury that would not have occurred without negligence on the part of the nursing home, his or her attorney may invoke a legal doctrine known as “res ipsa loquitur,” which places the burden on the nursing home to show that it was not negligent.

This doctrine might be successfully invoked, for example, in a case where a bedridden resident is injured by the use, or failure of, a medical instrument operated only by nursing home staff, and which does not ordinarily injure patients.

If you suspect that an elderly relative has been the victim of physical abuse at their care facility or that their “mysterious” falling accident was no accident at all – call or contact our nursing home neglect and abuse lawyers at the Strom Law Firm, LLC in Columbia, South Carolina  today for a free consultation to see how we can help.